With Canelo Alvarez coming off of a big win over Callum Smith on Saturday night and Errol Spence Jr having returned with his victory over Danny Garcia on Dec. 5, both of those star fighters will be looking forward to 2021 and what comes in the new year.
For Canelo, there will be talk of further unification at 168 pounds, maybe a third fight with Gennadiy Golovkin. For Spence, everyone wants him to fight Terence “Bud” Crawford at 147, though both of them seem more interested in fighting Manny Pacquiao first.
One idea, though, is Canelo and Spence meeting at 160 pounds. It’s not new; both sides have shown interest, and on last night’s DAZN broadcast, Chris Mannix asked Spence about it directly, as the WBC and IBF welterweight titleholder was on hand in San Antonio.
“I think it’s a great fight, especially at 160. I’m a guy that sucks down to 147. I mean, I really think that a lot of people see probably 80 or 70 percent of who I really am at 147 pounds,” Spence said. “I’m holding around because I wanted to be undisputed champion at 147, but if there’s a great fight at 160, I can definitely go up to 160 and fight easy.”
As for how the fight would go, Dallas’ Spence (27-0, 21 KO) had a brief but descriptive prediction.
“I think it’d be all-out war,” he said. “Have it at AT&T Stadium, 100 thousand-plus.”
In reality, Canelo-Spence almost surely would not be “all-out war,” as neither of them are “all-out war” type of fighters, and you have to figure that the 30-year-old Spence, no matter what he says about cutting weight and all this, would be quite cautious against the naturally bigger Canelo.
It would, however, do a huge crowd at AT&T Stadium when the time is right and everyone is fully free to pack venues for sporting events again. He’s got that part right for sure.
I’m kind of in the middle on this idea, personally. I get that it’d be a big fight and I think there’s some intrigue there. For one thing, Canelo boiling down to 160 at this point might take enough out of him that even if Spence really is just a leaner, sort of smaller man than Alvarez, it might be more even physically than you think. Canelo is thick and sturdy even up to 175, but Spence fills out well on fight night and I do think he might well campaign fine at 160. But is “Canelo might be so drained at 160 that Spence has a chance” really that interesting an idea?
I don’t know — what do you think? Is there a point we’ll see this, or is it just idle talk? Will Canelo even be able to make 160 anymore by the time Spence is ready? Could Spence really make the leap right now, before Canelo is genuinely unable to get down to 160 anymore?